


Gamzee week 2016

by NellyNee



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gamzee Week 2016, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 14:29:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16934988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellyNee/pseuds/NellyNee
Summary: A series of ficlet written and posted on Tumblr in 2016 for Gamzee week. Reposted here for Archiving.1. Day one: Pre-game/childhood - Janky sea dweller Gamzee, freshwater angst edition2. Gamzee week day 2: Happy Gamzee!3. Gamzee week day 3: Clown4. Gamzee week day 4: AU - winged!Gamzee5. Gamzee week day 5: Quadrants - Ashen Gamzee/Rose/Terezi6. Gamzee week day 6: Holiday7. Gamzee week day 7: post-game/redemption arc - now Jossed. I have a canon compliant version in the works





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One of my favorite tropes is bloodline blurring. In which trolls a little higher or lower in their spectrum spot might take on characteristics of their next closest spectrum. Gamzee having jank gills is a common form of this. 
> 
> In this case, he's a freshwater fish.

The waves wash him up on shore again. Gently, like a lusus nudging a wriggler into coon. Might be the only sort of touch Goatdad up and gave him. Brushing him away. In, in, into shore like Gamzee up and be the only troll who don’t up and belong with their caretaker.

 

Feels like motherfucking rejection. He’d eaten all to pie he could stomach quick like, enough to forget how the white tipped waves looked like the pearl teeth of the seadwellers and of how scared he was of the Ocean’s gaping maw; till he could up and tell himself that the ocean don’t just eat, it spits too, storms, trash, trolls and lusus, occasionally his own. Hurts to much, all the high terror of dragging waves wringing the spongy space in his head free of sopor until the harshness starts coming back.

 

But that don’t fucking matter right now. Skin is all bloated, like the sea done forced every bit of it it could into his belly and he’s fit to burst at the seams. Head’s all a pounding with the crash of the waves and he can feel his pumpbiscuit pound hot in his ears even as the rest of him shivers all numb and cold.

 

Throat hurts so bad. Nose is screaming at ‘im. Didn’t hurt like this before. Not the first time he’d fallen asleep in his ablutions but it’s the first time he’s woken to miracles, water warm and up above his head from where’s he’d left the tap on. Felt so nice then, and he spent so much time there he’d up and forgotten how to breath air.

 

Is this a joke, some kind of trial? Clowns who up and first showd him the holy ways said he’d be all up and tested of faith. He can’t begin to contemplate, how even motherfucking gods could up and know to give him a lusus made of water so long before so they could up and test him like this now.

 

No, no, he be believing either way, in water or no, dad or no, land or no, there’s always the gods. Gotta be some kind of gift, little feathery breathers all up and slicing up the thin spots between his soft chitin. He’d been doing it before, breathing water like it was motherfucking air, like he could all up and swim away and fallow a body when it tries to leave, why can’t he do it now?

 

Fighting lead limbs, diving again, salt burns down down down and he doesn’t choke, but it his chest clamps down heavy and it  _burns_ like raw nerves and cold fire


	2. Gamzee week day 2: Happy Gamzee!

Life aint even no thing. Everybody’s got their stresses on like the Moon’s are gonna spin so fast that they would all forget a troll. But all that big ol’ space up there, can’t be all forgettin, and we’re all part of it. Can’t no more forget a body than a body can forget their horntips. Good ol wack of a doorway will up and get a regular reminding on that’s for sure.

And worrying aint do nothin but harm. Digging holes in your own bad self while time grabs onto your thinkin and slows, naw. 

If one thing forgets him he up and got his other friends , and if not his friends then his horns, and if not his horns then his miracle syllabus, and if not that then something else, and if not even that then he got him some pie. 

adiosToreador [AT] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC] 

See? aint even no thing. 


	3. Gamzee week day 3: Clown

Even in another timeline where everything is fixed, Karkat’s clown friend is still weird.

 

Like ok it’s a normal kind of weird. John gets the vibe that if he hadn’t had some clue as to just how off the walls this guy could be then he wouldn’t be half a creeped out right now.

 

Normal people, when they realized they’re being stared at, aren’t going to smile like some wonky lunatic, even if there’s little else they can do when chained to a throne. They aren’t going to pull a coin out of their specibus. They’re not going to waggle the little disk of metal briefly before making a small show of slowly, painfully shoving it up their nose.

 

No one else is paying attention, and the clown doesn’t seem to be expecting them to. He holds John’s gaze as his long spindly fingers twitch behind his ear, and the missing coin makes it appearance again from the troll’s hair.

 

John nearly rolls his eyes. He’d seen that trick a million times and a million ways, but then the troll winks at him. The clown’s face goes scrunched up, and he huffs once, twice, before sneezing quietly into his fist. When he opens his hand again, the coin has turns a vibrant, snotty green.

 

John snorts, then chuckles.

 

He misses his dad.

 

He almost feels bad for the poor guy, when the troll catches the bit of laughter and smiles in a way that’s almost innocently open. But then it twists a little, and there it is. That’s a smile John’s seen before.

 

The feeling goes away.


	4. Gamzee week day 4: AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I spent hours blocking out a “Signless was deified by the clown church” AU before I realized I needed to go to bed and it was like 50 chapters in the making, so I wrote my other Favorite Gamzee trope that never kicked off, winged!Gamzee
> 
> For those curious, the Signless was deified by the church AU lives!

He survives only by the great and good graces of his Messiahs.

 

Some might call it luck, but what little he remembers, not even luck could have cared for him so.

 

He doesn’t know about how his cool little coon having nothing to watch over his most vulnerable bits is asking to be culled by some passing force. He can’t guess the happenstance of how his hive remained unmolested by weather and troll. Can’t comprehend the chance of living through a regular pupatation with so little nourishment for his body to work with, let alone something so rough. Can’t even think on all the time he spent starving, waiting for his body to remember his head was a thing.

 

What he does know, is that he took too long, and that’s about it. He remembers very little. Bursting forth from his little coon, everything a touch too hot and wet, a dark spot closed off and close up and smelling of opened flesh and wet meat. Countless hours, days, where his skin was squeezing so hard he thought his eyes would straight pop out of his head, where his blood rushed through him so hard and fast that it washed out any thinking he could do. He knows the little knobby bits on his back sure as fuck aint dud fins like he thought they were.

 

Later, he prays that he’ll live again, when the biggest brother do look upon him with something, while not meanness, surly isn’t kind, and it takes more than a few to hold him down as they take a knife to the bits of him deemed unworthy.


	5. Gamzee week day 5: Quadrants (Gamzee C3< Rose)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The conversation between Gamzee and Rose in Openbound, from Gamzee's POV, in which he assumes that his BLATANT ASHEN ADVANCES towards Rose for he and Terezi are being well received and reciprocated. He doesn't human good.

(at first I wondered if I should do something weird, or something self indulgent. I decided on both. Based on the theory that the Openbound conversation between Rose and Gamzee could be seen as  _really overt ashen advances_ on Gamzee’s part, rather than real concern that Karkat would kill him)

 

Aint no thing he might have thought about all alone with his bad self, but a thought of it he does have.

 

Most this place aint too safe for the likes of him, but by the time the pasty little chica comes bustin in on his little diamond’s snooze he’s had it up to his ganderbulbs with some motherfucker or other trying to interrupt a rest most needed. He aint got no sass with the girl for her to stir her dander up on, so for once, he sits his ass put.

 

She starts it, she really does, when instead of poking at another troll more familiar, she comes tottering up to him instead. Don’t make no sense, when they aint got no business, but there she is, smirking at his gaze most known to cause the jeeblies and a kind word in warning against her matesprite’s machinations.

 

Cute. Really. She is. Makes sense, what with her closest troll confident being the self proclaimed club shaped bi-pedal riding device, that’d she’d pick up some mannerisms, turn into a bit of a flirt. ‘Cept it don’t make sense at all. Problem with flirty Auspice is that they can’t keep their clubs pinned down long. And fuck if that little florescent cunt don’t have an EMBARRASING FUCKING HISTORY. Just cause you got experience don’t make you not bad at your job, just means you got experience in DOING IT WRONG.

 

He tries not to take it personal like, knows all them humans got some degree of worry for the greater all peace but damn does she lay it on thick. Making inquiries up on his black like she needs already be keeping tabs. Feels good, didn’t guess how good it would, to flirt with her a bit.

 

Yeah he’d been craving the clubs, aint ashamed. His wreck of a girl was real fun at first. STILL A REAL MOTHERFUCKING HOOT. Puts up one hell of a fight. A source of many and varied  _stim-u-la-tions_  if you catch his drift (HONK). But it shames him to admit that he’s probably the only sad excuse for a troll around who can up and see the inevitable decline. Karkat would, but fuck that noise Gamzee like’s his diamond where it all be, and any who which way would know that Karkat’s got no pull on Terezi’s actions or lack of. And oh how he may pity his best friend but even knowing where this trainwreck’s gonna go, there aint no way Gamzee can up and pull away from his spiteful little spade. He’s tried, yes he has, but he’s got the feeling he aint going to be able to help being interested until she stops being interesting, and by then it’s gonna be too late. And damn if breaking her don’t make him a bit sad.

 

Closest thing he’d thought one’d come to caring ‘bout it would be the great ashen wonderwoman herself. But he wasn’t just whispering sweet nothins to that Rose girl, because for serious, fuck that daywalking bitch.

 

But DAYUM dose the daywalkign bitch have good taste. Come’s all natural like, just a bit of trusting for her interest. Supposed to feel like pulling teeth. Reason his hatemance has been all secretive like is because in their own ways they both know it aint no good. Nothin to interrupt if there aint no knowledge of interrupting need be. Come’s easy though.

 

“I can’t even parse that relationship as something meaningful.”

 

FUCK if that don’t set him all a doki doki. Hurts so good, so callous. Not hurtful apathy , or the interest she’d had with her little play guesses, but disregard, like they shouldn’t even have done been a thing, like they should fucking know better.

 

He leads the conversation a bit longer, testing the extent of her care. His comment on Karkat’s potential anger is a FUCKING LINE and he knows it but feels downright ingenuous to be anything but right the fuck UP AND FRONT with their thick ass species.

 

She retaliates with the most plain and simple ashy line of her own and he is fucking BESOTTED enough that he sits there, waiting to see what sort of action she might take to his motherfucking person to make sure that he aint seen, but she checks up on Karkat instead (who don’t even need of up and checking, thank you very much).

 

She glances at him over her shoulder on the way out. Probably checking to make sure he aint gonna pull no weapon on her back, but the effect is seductive anyways. Like she don’t need no action, like he’s gonna motherfucking up and just do what she says cause he should do it for his own self. She aint his diamond. Aint even his fucking hatefriend.

 

And damn if he doesn’t get up in that vent.


	6. Gamzee week day 6: Holiday

It’s pure miraculous happenstance that puts he and all the other little clownlets up on the fleet just in time for jubilation, and it’s generally understood by every little clown that this sweep’s indoctrination is going to be extra special.

 

Not one day, not one week, not a hundred sweeps from the day can he remember the first time he saw the cathedral. Time unknown and half spent in fluttery lights and the strong smell of blood and slurry and reverie. Recollections of debauchery of all kinds and the screams of sacrifices. The cadence of dim lights through an upturned bottle of elixir.

 

But he does have some memory like of that first second after let through the doors. The noise and heat and brightness of it. Swimming lights and colors and screams.

 

Miracles.


	7. Gamzeeweek day 7: post-game/redemption arc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now jossed for endgame. Adheres to the theory that the rift between Gamzee and Karkat, and the relationship between Karkat and Dave, all stemmed from Calliborn's passive influence on the universe and his own personal ships, and that the end of the game indicated breaking out of that influence, and how that would affect those in question. 
> 
> I ultimately ended up conceiving an Canon compliant GamKar fic, but it probably won't go up til I find a proper Discord server to hash the details out in. (TOTALLY UP FOR DISCUSSION)
> 
> The formatting and stream of consciousness is weird, because it was part of a discussion.

On the retcon note too, like, someone made an excellent point with Gamkar and KarDave and how they both existed exclusively at times when the teller of the story openly shipped those ships respectively. Like Gamkar happened when Hussie was telling the story, who showed an interest in “happily ever after” with those two. While as soon as Caliborn, who openly shipped KarDave and HATED Gamzee with a passion, gained control, so did the ship and Gamzee’s pale misery. There was a sort of whole, insinuation with the whole thing, that the power placement of those characters may have let them subtly, or in Caliborn’s case not so subtly and a lot more forcibly, influence those aspects of the story somehow.

The same theorist referred to also, of the abrupt end of Homestuck. People complain about wanting to hear the rest of the story, but in reality, there is no story. They did it, they got out, out of the hellhole downward spiral into repetitive deaths and apathy. We can’t see the rest of the story, because it’s no longer a story, it’s their lives. (throwing out on unrelated to my point but related to theory, the Gamzee is the Horror-terrors theory. Look it up with you want to be sad or want story ideas or just amazing meta.)

And so just imagine it, specifically in terms of Gamzee, Dave, and Karkat. A world where a lot of these relationships were just shifted a bit to the left, where the will of another smoothed all the edges and nudged these little dolls into kisses. 

And then they get out and that smoothing is gone. 

Dave is gradually more uncomfortable. After John pulled all that weird timey whimey bullshit and got swept up in the battle Dave didn’t have a lot of time to say hello to everyone, even if he was the fucking knight of time. He could have found the time, probably should have found the time. 

He can’t figure out why he didn’t find the time.

Hanging out with Karkat seemed a lot more interesting, even if Dave can specifically remember how badly he’d wanted to meet everyone.

Don’t get him wrong, Karkat’s awesome, but Dave can’t figure out why he never sought out his other friends. He’s sure there was weird emotions about growing up and apart involved, but…

He makes the time now.

He still hangs out with Karkat mostly though. All that alone togetherness broke down walls for Dave he needed broken. Sunglasses once removed can not be donned again, and Dave is revealed to have someone he can chill with without reservations. Karkat has become a safe place that Dave isn’t sure he’s strong enough to loose.

(If bro was alive he’d be ashamed. He thinks. Dirk confuses things. Dave had meant to keep his cool kid persona, but it stopped worrying him for some reason…. It worries him now, but its too late for that hurdle….. or not…. or is…. Dave doesn’t know what he wants, or needs, or…. Dave gradually becomes more uncomfortable….)

Dave also remembers a time not to long ago when this whole quadrant mess made a whole hell of a lot of sense. Dave remembers when it was a confusing hodgepodge and he didn’t give two fucks about quadrants. The second one seems a lot more familiar and he backslides like a motherfucker. 

(Dave tells himself to shove it up his own ass. This is their planet and anyone who wants to judge him can eat a galactic frog turd. Dave Fucking Hates Quadrants.)

Karkat is… tired. 

Vriska taking over as leader was a huge blow to him. For all his fucking up and the deaths on his hands he never once thought to trust anyone else with the position. He didn’t trust himself, but at least it gave him someone to blame. Who was he kidding, if he give up as leader and someone else failed then he was still the one at fault. The real fear was for someone to succeed where he failed, and the nastiest little spider bitch kept everyone alive despite all evidence to her narcissism and cruelty.

It’s a hard lesson, when she was awful and got all the glory and he meant well and will probably die in obscurity.

He didn’t trust her personally, but at some point the universe seemed to be in her favor and he was kinda…. forced to.

Gamzee grew distant, was slipping through his fingers. His instincts tell him to hold on with all his limbs and help and pity but Vriska treats Gamzee like a rust slave or burden beast and then wants to lock him in away….

Karkat doesn’t trust his luck anymore… at least Gamzee stopped killing people…. at least he’s not off doing creepy shit…. at least he’s alive…. isn’t that what Karkat wanted?

(Honk…. honk…. goes the fridge, small and pathetic and karkat blocks it out willfully. Karkat keeps his mouth shut and people stay alive. If he doesn’t think about it, it doesn’t exist.)

Life sucks, but it sucks less with Dave. If he’s going to be a nothing, then he’ll be a happy fucking nothing. It’s the only thing that’s gone right for him so far, so maybe this is how it’s supposed to be. Maybe this is fate’s way of telling him he’s got it right. And he’s happy. It’s liberating, not giving any shits, and Dave kinda… settles. All that purposeful density crumbles away and the brittle, pitiable core of him starts to flirt out, like the glimpse of crimson eyes behind shades that Karkat gets. The end of the universe doesn’t seem so bad if you lock yourself away and pretend it doesn’t exist. 

Then they get out of the game. It’s good for a while, and at one point Karkat rolls in the grass until he;s curled up next to Dave and feels like the windswept protagonist of one of his novels. 

This is what moirallegiance is supposed to be. Not easy exactly, but simple and good, holding each other up and making each other better. Dave does make him better. His past self was an idiot. Letting go is easy. Letting go of the stress and responsibilities (of his dreams and memories) leaves room to relax and just exist for a while.

And then it’s… less good.

All of Dave’s smoothed down edges start to grow back, denser and sharper than before. All the liquid uncaring in Karkat hardens into worry and guilt until his stomach fills and he can’t breath. Neither of them know why.

But walls beaten down once and built in a hurry are easier broken the second time, especially when you already know what’s on the other side waiting.

This is better. This is work but it works. This is the Living neither knew they craved in stagnation.

(Karkat misses Gamzee. For the first time in a long time he misses Gamzee and he can’t remember why he fought so hard not to. 

With Gamzee it hadn’t been easy. It hadn’t even been simple. But Karkat had been needed in a way he desperately craves now. Back in the game Gamzee had been a toddering tower of blocks and Karkat hadn’t the time to keep it standing, not if he wanted to keep their delicate group standing too. But this is their prize, their paradise. For all that various deities claimed he was needed on this planet Karkat has shitfucks to do until the Mother Grub hatches and Kanaya stops being vague in his direction.

Karkat has time and safe space now to pick every little bit of Gamzee that used to scare him and figure out how they fit together instead of jamming them (HA) into place and hoping something holds up. The idea is… titillating, and Karkat uses that to ward off the guilt. Uses memories he’s shoved into a little box locked with a purple key to light a fire under his ass. 

Karkat dreams about waking up in a pile of horns that wheeze under him like dying sighs and sometimes the horns are bodies and the wheezing is real. He dreams about a crooked thumb tracing over his cheek, long ragged claws hooked into the soft place under his chin, a dark enigmatic gaze that could be pity or could be apathy and the flat line of his mouth that Gamzee used to hide with paint until even Karkat was fooled by the smile. He dreams of the split seconds near the end (of what?) where he’d catch a glimpse and know that Gamzee had watched him sleep, kept watch when Karkat was at his most vulnerable, stopped being awful for a while to take some care. Karkat had slept more, hoping to catch another glimpse, hoping to divert Gamzee’s attention any way he can. In his dreams that split second lasts for hours, and the doubt that had plagued him in his waking back then never comes. When he does wake, it’s with tingling horns and the fuzzy energy and hot eyes of needing to be soothed. He kisses Dave. Pale and sweet as sugar stars, and then goes to punch trees until either he or the tree bleeds, he doesn’t care which.)

(Past him is a fucking complacent dribbling moron. Who the fuck just abandons their moirail like that? Fuck everyone and fuck their lusus for refusing to tell him where they dropped the idiot clown off. He’ll find Gamzee himself.) (Dave come’s with. The more he remembers the less he likes. These half memories and emotions not the same as an absorbed timeline and he needs to sort himself out. He can’t do that without Karkat. As much as he doesn’t want to trust Karkat, as much as these almost feelings keep leading back to him, they rebuilt their walls together outside of whatever this is and built their tunnels to each other in the process. Dave hates quadrants but he cares about Karkat. So he goes with.)

(DAVE FUCKING HATES CLOWNS FUCK)

Gamzee is…..

…..

…..

Man what was he thinking?

Thinking’s hard. For so long he had two spindly little spider crawling all up and around his pan, spinning their webs over the upturned edges and covering the sopor holes of it to catch all his self up in every time a bit of it would get it’s wings together and try it’s hand at being something that buzzed about.

First one of the spiders all up and killed the other, had hope for a second, but she all up and just spun her new webs over the old until all his little physical bits were limp and fuzzy and his pan was just a silky cloud. 

Then the spider left, but she left all her webs behind, and Gamzee aint too good at clearing the cobwebs out, not when he’s got to be picking all them buzzy angry things things out without breaking off legs and wings and shoving them back in through the sopor holes. Pretty shit at it actually.

It’s cold. Colder than his blood, colder than his bones, colder than the unforgiving stares of the horrors. Except for his face, where his breath comes out warm and damp, making the walls around his head all sticky. He aint never been aware of his janky ass gills like now, flexin and gasping for air that aint half rot.

Dark too. He’s got a vague, dreamy recollection at times, not always, of the contents of where hes at getting all dumped to make room for him. He remember’s because the walls are flaky and stinks like death and merriment. All that beauty and color right here, rubbing up against every part of him like the stains of his virtues and sins and yet it’s all robbed away by the light and lack of. Is it even there or he just imagine it there and so it is? fucking miracles. Must be there even if he can’t figure it, and if that aint the messiahs will…. but damn even if he can’t get his googlin on he can still feel, scrape it away with his nails until the beds of them go raw and sting, keep going until the ache turns to hurting and he can paint the walls around him with unseen beauty. He can fucking count the time when damp turns to crust turns to rust on his skin and everything that aint cool, the tops of his arms, the creases of his eyes and mouth and nose, the wrinkle in his fins, the knobs of his knees and everything that brush everything else, when it goes all hot and seepy and cries for him.

hE CaN NoT SeE BuT He cAn fUcKiNg COMPREHEND!

HONKHONKHONKHONKHONK…

HONKHONKHONKHONKHONK….

honkhonkhonkohnk….

honk….

honk…

honk….

honk….

honk….

(He tucks his nose into the crease of his prison and drags in a breath that smells like his lusus so deep that he sleeps for once and craves)


End file.
